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<title>When We Look at the Moon by reggajybab</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29998392">When We Look at the Moon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/reggajybab/pseuds/reggajybab'>reggajybab</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Direction</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Depression, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Harry is a student, M/M, No underage but they are professor and student, Sexual Tension, Zayn is an academic genius type</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:28:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>923</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29998392</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/reggajybab/pseuds/reggajybab</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn lives his life in a closed circle; he needs Harry to teach him to open. </p><p>AU in which Zayn is a Nobel prize-winning author turned Literature professor who finds himself stuck in the depression of fame and genius. Harry is the young painter who sees right through him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles/Original Male Characters, Zayn Malik/Harry Styles, Zayn Malik/Original Male Characters</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>When We Look at the Moon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hello lovelies, here is the first chapter. Song for the chap is All My Days by Alexi Murdoch.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zayn is re-reading 'The Odyssey' when he realises it's fall. He looks up from the battered, dog-eared copy he's had since he was fifteen, and notices that the leaves outside his window are orange. Not a gaudy or bright orange. More muted and frail, like how he imagines Ithaca's sunset to be - the heavy weight of the weary sun sinking, as it waits for its king to return home. Zayn muses, then snorts at his own pretentiousness. </p><p>God, it's like writing one good book spoils you for life. </p><p>Not for the first time, Zayn thinks that if he'd known 'Spelling Grace' would be such a success, he would have savoured the writing process a bit more. As of now, all he had was a prestigious prize won some ten years ago, and a semi-prestigious job as Professor at Brown University to show for his credentials. After a while, he'd stopped thinking of his job as a credential, lest he drive himself mad with shame. </p><p>One good book. And now 'The Odyssey' is how he spends his time. Well, that and belatedly noticing that it's fall again. 

It had been too easy to lose track of the seasons once he became a professor. You measure time by the number of faces and names you memorised, the ratio of somewhat stimulating v boring seminars you held, and the number of times someone brought up Shakespeare in a discussion. These days, it’s getting rarer and rarer. At first, Zayn couldn’t decide if this was depressing or not, considering how back in his day, he could've quoted Shakespeare's sonnets backwards. 

But in general, he isn't a depressed person per se - the myth about sad writers and brilliant art is sorely overdone. When he first wrote the opening lines of 'Spelling Grace', he had probably been in the happiest phase of his life: he was twenty-five, newly-graduated, and unlike most fresh graduates, the high of a successful and ego-boosting four years at college had filled him with a kind of infallibility. He wasn't worried about job prospects or paying for his shitty flat. </p><p>Young Zayn Malik could do anything. </p><p>And he did. He found himself all sorts of odd writing jobs, working from dawn till evening, before retiring onto his bed, where he did his best writing, glass of wine in hand and his old laptop. He'd crack his knuckles, and the words would write themselves. It was like lightning struck, every night. Or so he remembers.  </p><p>And then he'd met Lucian a year after that, and it felt like the universe had plucked the brightest blossom from its tallest tree to give right to him. Smart, sharp Lucian, who never let Zayn get away with his writer's tongue - that way Zayn has where he speaks in riddles and argues in them, too. He'd never have asked Lucian to be his boyfriend if Lucian hadn't forced his hand; the skinny, baby-faced twenty year-old engineering major was way too sure of himself to let Zayn stamp his writer’s riddles all over him. After their sixth date, he'd marched into Zayn's flat: either you're mine and I'm yours, or we're done. Then he tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, his blue eyes blazing and fierce as anything. Zayn would tell their friends (and anyone who'd listen later) that that moment was how he knew. </p><p>But that was then. </p><p>Zayn shakes his head, as if the memory burned him. He touches his copy of 'The Odyssey' lightly, as if to ground himself in it. Outside the window of his professor's flat, the rich grand courtyard of Brown presents itself to him. At this time of year, students trickle back into school, lazy and satiated from their holiday feasts and family homes. That’s the funny thing about undergrads that never fails to impress Zayn: no matter how shitty things were the last semester, or a month or a week or a day ago, they come back ready to start again, begin anew. He recognizes it in face after face, as he idly observes the steady stream of students walking back onto the grounds, books and laptops in hand. 

They’re ready to begin a new semester. For Zayn, it's getting harder and harder to differentiate it from the previous one. </p><p>In an effort to centre himself, from bad memories and that increasingly familiar feeling of ache and loneliness, he follows the gentle pattern of a falling leaf. Right outside his window, it dances downwards from a high branch, as if beckoning his eye towards it. </p><p>Just as Zayn is about to look away, it falls right onto the head of a passing student, who looks up and feels the top of it questioningly. It's a rather large head, Zayn thinks, given several extra inches of height due to a large mass of brown curls, wild and unkempt. It's hard to differentiate it from the various birds' nests Zayn sees in the trees outside his window. The student looks up, and Zayn sees that it's a boy; a tall, waif-life figure with a pale face and large eyes. He flounders around his head, as if the leaf were a magical object fallen from the heavens, instead of a simple autumn leaf, probably dead or dying. Zayn watches and, inexplicably, laughs at the sight, the corners of his mouth tilting up. 

It's a relief, Zayn thinks, to know he can laugh again. </p><p>Shaking his head, he shuts the blinds on the stranger and his magical leaf, and picks up his reading from page 149.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thank you for reading! Next chapters will be longer, but I just wanted to keep the very first one short and sweet.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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